Charles Church Owners Club

Roof cleaning

To clean or not to clean?  All our roofs, whether they are Roman tiles (the big curvy ones) or normal tiles (the small flat ones) collect moss and lichen like a small child collects head lice.  Unlike head lice, moss and lichen can be cleared with a power washer.  Actually, I can't say for sure that head lice can't be cleared with a power washer but I can't get either of my kids to volunteer.

Three houses in our close decided to try having the roof cleared and the results are mixed.  The two houses with flat tiles have come up quite well but the one roof with Roman tiles has come up quite pale.  I'll publish accounts of all three shortly plus prices and photos. 

Exterior woodwork

One of the bigger but less frequent jobs on most Charles Church properties is to maintain the wooden beams, facias and soffits.  Two painters with experience of this work have suggested it should be done every five years but they're biased so let's call it five to seven years.

The correct treatment appears to be Sadolin (http://www.sadolin.co.uk/) Classic with Sadolin Extra being used for window frames and doors.  There is more information on Sadolin's 'Professional' websiste.

The best approach may be to have all the exterior paintwork done as a single job and this seems to be the approach taken by the experienced painters.  This would then include the beams, facias (the bit behind the gutter), soffits (the underside below the gutter), gables, window frames, doors and all the other woodwork around the front door, garage doors and even the gas and electric meter doors.  Expect a bill of £600-800 depending on the model of house.  Any less and you may not be getting someone who knows what they're doing. 

If you have had this job done recently and could share information with us, please add a comment below.  It would be useful to know who you used, whether you'd recommend them, how they approached the job, how much they charged you and what products and colours they used.